


Sierra Three

by Pic_Akai



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-31
Updated: 2012-03-31
Packaged: 2017-11-02 20:16:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/372964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pic_Akai/pseuds/Pic_Akai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where Sherlock and the gang are a security team in a gig venue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sierra Three

_Angel's_ is a medium-sized gig venue in a medium-priced part of London. The musicians that play there are all of medium quality, the drinks are medium-range, the bar staff are medium-sized (although not, as a rule, middle-aged) and the punters are generally rather ordinary.

The security staff, on the other hand, seem to have been imported in from some alternate universe, because they don't fit at all.

"I'm not working with him," Sherlock says, at exactly the same time that Anderson says, "I'm not working with that." They glare at one another as the rest of the room rolls their eyes.

"No you're bloody not, not after last night," Lestrade agrees, not bothering to look up from his clipboard. "Sherlock, you're on the door with me and John. Anderson, Molly, you're in the pit. Dimmock and Sally, Sierra Three. Any questions?"

"Um," says Molly, "I'm in the pit?"

Lestrade smiles at her. "It's going to be full, but they're almost without exception middle-aged soft rockers. You won't get much crowd-surfing tonight. Probably just half a dozen polite requests for water and where the loos are."

"All right," Molly says, though she still sounds nervous. Molly usually does.

"You'll be fine," Mrs Hudson says to her, patting her arm. There isn't any need for Mrs Hudson to be in for the briefing, as she can get it all from a sheet in five minutes, but she likes to be, to know exactly what's going on. She's their control, both in the sense of ordering them around from the office upstairs and in the sense that she does so outside of it, too, and in their personal lives. Lestrade has once or twice had to have a quiet word with her about not giving dating advice to Anderson over the radio while there are customers in.

Radios and brief sheets are handed out, and John produces a shirt and boots for Sherlock when he tries to claim he hasn't got any because he was so terribly busy today he didn't have time to get home and change. Lestrade smiles to himself as he overhears the exchange and wonders when Sherlock will realise that John will _always_ have these ready for Sherlock, because he's taken the role of babysitter, because he's mad.

They would be a force of nature if they did admit their feelings to one another and get together, but Lestrade can't say he doesn't hope for it at least a little bit. John, at the very least, deserves some happiness.

Twenty minutes later they're all in place, and Lestrade pushes open the front door as Mrs Hudson calls 'green on doors'.

Sherlock is silent and sulky for the first five minutes, which is just how Lestrade likes him when he's got a simple task to do, as he does it quietly. Then one of the customers makes the fatal, "Cheer up, it might never happen," comment and both Lestrade and John pause for a moment, waiting to hear the fallout.

"You yourself are remarkably cheery for someone who's just lost their job."

Lestrade leans round to confirm the worst - yes, there is a woman standing with the man, now looking at him in confusion. He sighs and continues ripping tickets.

"And you haven't told your wife yet, which suggests you're not too proud of the fact. Perhaps because it was your own fault, something to do with your cocaine habit?"

"What the hell are you implying?" the man shouts back, and Lestrade relaxes fully when it's clear this one's a shouter, not a puncher. Sherlock can hold his own easily enough in a fight but he never seems to see the first punch coming, because of his unshakable belief that everyone ought to be able to handle the truth if they're going to be so obvious about it.

Lestrade glances up but he doesn't even need to say anything to John; he's already moved in between Sherlock and the customer and is crowding Sherlock backwards inch by inch, holding his hands up to the man and placating with complete bollocks, and finally waving him and his now much more irritated-looking wife inside.

"What time was that?" Lestrade asks into his microphone.

"Four minutes and fifty three seconds, dear," comes the reply. "Dimmock's won tonight."

"Get in," Dimmock says over the radio, and nothing else.

"Isn't this ridiculous betting game rather unprofessional, Lestrade?" Sherlock spits, tearing at a ticket with such violence that the woman he hands it back to seems hesitant to take it. Luckily for her he's looking at Lestrade at the moment so he doesn't bother to start in on her.

Lestrade rips a ticket and smiles at the customer before answering, "Completely. But then it's about you, which explains everything."

"I don't think Mycroft would be too happy if I told him."

"It was Mycroft's idea," John says mildly, rooting through a bag and extracting a can of hairspray with a raised eyebrow. The woman shrugs awkwardly and he shakes his head and puts it back. "He suggested it for a way to help the team cope."

Lestrade notes that John doesn't include himself in that. He is a part of the team - a bloody vital one - but again, he's almost separate from them insofar as he allies himself with Sherlock.

"He what?" Sherlock says, but then they're interrupted by Mrs Hudson.

"John dear, a lady's slipped over by the bar and she's complaining about her ankle," and since John is the first aider, he disappears. That leaves Lestrade wrangling Sherlock but at least he's got over his first tantrum of the night.

* * * * *

"This is going to be immensely tedious," Sherlock maintains as he ties his shoelaces.

"Whereas usually it's a barrel of laughs," Sally retorts, not that he was even talking to her. She's sore tonight because she's on Sierra Three and when the majority of the customers are in, Sherlock's joining her and Anderson.

It's a strange - and volatile - choice, but there wasn't a lot else Lestrade could do, John recognises. Molly will be hopeless tonight because the place will be full of wankers flashing their cash around, so she's better off in the pit where the most she'll have to do is back up Lestrade. He's covering the stage because inevitably at some point one tosser will try to get onto it, and he's the one that makes them hesitate the most. One attempt though will start a chain reaction as they try to best one another, and he likes to deal with that sort of crap himself.

Dimmock won last month's pool prize, meaning he got the most correct guesses for Sherlock's first tantrum, which also means he gets a Sherlock-free week. Lestrade's already had to promise him two more Sherlock-free days next week in exchange for the hour he'll spend with him tonight.

Sherlock can't start on Sierra Three alone with Sally or Anderson because someone will end up dead, and John himself has managed to sprain his wrist following Sherlock and what he suspects was a criminal around the streets of London at four in the morning, so he's no use on the floor.

John does feel sorry for Lestrade sometimes, but then he gets paid more than the rest of them for a reason. John suspects it's significantly more.

It's as quiet on the door as they can hope for given the night's clientele; Sherlock insults a good six or so of them in the first half hour and Dimmock has to step in to stop two fights. Still, John doesn't think he's as pissed off as he looks because Sherlock is at least cutting down on the crowd of arseholes that'll be inside. If they can get a reputation for the sort of place that doesn't kowtow to moronic moneyed types then maybe they'll go somewhere else.

Things get interesting though when the initial rush has died down and they're taking it in turns to tear tickets.

"Sherlock Holmes? Is that you?"

Sherlock was actually halfway through an explanation to John about the events of the previous night when the voice interrupted, and he pauses. John turns around to see someone who looks exactly like the rest of the prats they've let in tonight.

"My god, what on earth are you doing here?"

"Sebastian," Sherlock says, with a tight, incredibly fake smile. "Here to see the band?"

"Of course, yah," Sebastian says. "Got some clients here who love this act, say they're fascinating...why don't you go on in, I'll catch you up?" He waves on the men and woman with him and Dimmock gets them all in, clearly seeing that Sherlock and by extension John are busy. "Really, though, what the hell are you doing as a door goon? Did your father's business collapse?"

"My father's dead," Sherlock says matter-of-factly.

Sebastian proves himself to be a true type of the night when he reacts not with horror and embarrassment but, "Oh, right. Gambled away your inheritance, then?"

John is bristling, and can't understand for the life of him why Sherlock isn't.

"Not at all," Sherlock says. "I'm here gathering a little on-the-ground data."

"Wouldn't have thought you'd have needed to," Sebastian says. He turns to John. "This guy, he used to be able to look at you and tell you exactly what you'd been up to. Could give you your whole life story if he had enough time. Awfully creepy. We used to hate him." Unbelievably, he's smiling as he says this. When nobody replies, he continues, "So what on earth are you hoping to find out in this godforsaken job? No offence," he adds to John and Dimmock.

"Offence taken, actually," John growls, but there's a sudden confusing role-reversal as Sherlock steps in front of him.

"It's immensely useful for gathering data about the customers. My main business is detective work and you'd be surprised how often something I notice here comes in handy with a client later."

Sebastian feigns interest, and soon after he's gone inside.

"You should have let me hit him," John says, curling his fists at his sides.

"You've got a sprained wrist," Sherlock responds dismissively.

"Only the one," John says, "And I know how to hit with both."

"Did you say your main business is detective work?" Dimmock asks incredulously half a minute later. "This is a full time job."

John grins as Sherlock replies, "There are twenty four hours in a day and I am here, when I am working, for approximately six on a gig night, eight on a club night or twelve if I'm doing load-in or load-out. That leaves usually more than half the day to pursue my interests. This isn't remotely full time."

"When do you sleep?"

"When I have no other choice."

Dimmock looks at John. "He doesn't join in on the caffeine runs."

John shrugs. "I think he's got his own supplier. If you catch him at the right time though he'll have a whole case of Relentless in one go."

Two hours later John and Dimmock are playing Guess The Object with the confiscated items bin, taking turns to close their eyes and have a rummage while the other person keeps an eye out for customers, when Mrs Hudson announces over the radio, "Sierra Three, if you wouldn't mind popping over to the top bar, there's a bit of an incident going on."

They pause the game, waiting for the inevitable, and several minutes later John is both surprised and delighted to see Anderson struggling with one man who keeps trying to throw him off as Sherlock propels Sebastian firmly with his right arm as he keeps hold of a wild animal in a suit with the other. Sally is following behind him, ignoring the woman screaming in her ear and occasionally blocking the animal's attempts to get Sherlock to the floor, and Sebastian is saying loudly about how outrageous this all is and how his friend was only offering to buy the girl a drink and that was a compliment.

John would bet his entire year's pay that what the man had said wasn't a compliment in the slightest. He grins internally as Sherlock pretends to start struggling with the man in the foyer, leaving John the task of removing Sebastian very firmly from the building. Sherlock can be a bit of a dick a lot of the time, but he is a good friend on the odd occasion.

* * * * *

"It won't take long," Sherlock is saying when John returns from the pit. He's bouncing between there and Sierra Three tonight, covering the pit when the bands are playing and people are needed to catch the kids flying over people's heads, then watching the floor in between when half of them stumble off to be sick or pass out somewhere. Teenage gigs can be really annoying if you're on the door, arguing with them about why they can't bring their chewing gum/video camera/glow sticks/pens in, but John likes it when he's inside. There's a lot of energy and it gets the blood pumping. 

"I don't think I'm allowed to," Molly says dubiously, and John knows without asking that Sherlock's trying to convince her to let him do something definitely unallowed and probably illegal, again. Molly's a medical student, working here to get herself through uni, and Sherlock sees this as free access to test subjects. Sherlock is wrong about this.

"No experimenting on people without a medical qualification," John says firmly, and Sherlock's reply is cut short as they get directed to a small fight at the other end of the room.

Once they have established that Tyler did not kiss Sam's girlfriend, that she said that to make him jealous and that Tyler is in fact gay - Sherlock providing that bit of information; Tyler's friends thankfully reacting without animosity, more surprise that he hadn't told them; John thanking god that kids these days are more tolerant - Sierra Three amble back to the bar, Sherlock stopping every now and then to point out which kids are using, not that they can do anything unless they see the drugs.

He and John are in the middle of an oft-repeated argument about whether it is okay or not to strip-search a teenager, when a chill suddenly goes down John's spine. A moment later, the chill is followed by a voice.

"Hello," says the voice, but it sounds more like, "My, I'm going to enjoy eating you for supper."

" _Mycroft_ ," Sherlock says in disgust, and they turn as one to see Sherlock's older brother, incongruous as ever in his three piece suit, leaning on his umbrella, in the middle of a sea of unwashed black-clad teenagers, who have unsurprisingly given him a fairly wide berth.

"Mycroft," John says in greeting, not letting his eyes move away from Mycroft's because he was like some sort of wild animal, or maybe the angel statues in Doctor Who - if you blinked you were dead.

"Mr Holmes," Molly says waveringly.

"Greetings," Mycroft says genially, smiling. "And how are we today, Sherlock?"

"You are smug and overweight," Sherlock says. "I am irritated and bored."

"Cheers," John mutters, but doesn't mean for it to be an actual part in the conversation. As expected, both brothers ignore it.

"You are aware," Mycroft says, swinging his umbrella up in a wide arc and probably not at all inadvertently widening the gap around them, "that the purpose of this endeavour is that you learn to get along better with your fellow man?"

Sherlock looks haughty and ridiculous and disturbingly similar to his brother. "If you want me to get along with my fellows, you'd do better to find me some, instead of working with this bunch of morons."

"Hey!" John says, unbidden.

Sherlock turns to him, amazingly acknowledging his existence, and says, "I am referring, John, to the customers."

Everybody pauses in astonishment as they process the fact that Sherlock has just said something purely to make someone else feel better and also admitted that he sees them as something vaguely regarding an equal.

"I see it's working well," Mycroft says, recovering smoothly. "Good evening," and then he floats off through the crowd, a three foot radius of space around him at all times.

"Arsehole," Sherlock mutters after him, and John raises both eyebrows. "What?" he says. "Lestrade keeps using it. I thought it rather fit."

**Author's Note:**

> I adore concrit.


End file.
